Doctor Who SE30E05: The Unicorn and the Wasp [Spoilers]

[Bounty]

Cocktails are being served on the lawn.

[Bounty]

I don't know about you lot, but I'd much rather they'd make that "Charlemagne kidnapped by evil computer" story than another alien takeover.

[Bounty]

So, a bunch of bad ideas stuck together by Doctor Exposition. A bit like Tooth and Claw, but worse.

The book facsimile thing was horrible. They did Dickens justice, so why did they botch Christie so bad?

[Lord Woodlouse]

I was amused.

[Crazedwraith]

Uninspired tripe. Recycled jokes. (Tooth & Claw and the posh/scot accents) And just generally silly. Though the flashback gags weren't too bad. Especially the Doctor. I wonder: Did that really happen in an old episode? Or did it happen off screen to the current Doctor?

But hey It had Felicity Kendall in it. So it wasn't all bad.

[Glimmervoid]

Not that good, nothing really grabbed my attention though it was an amusing way to spend 40 minutes.

On a related note I seem to remember watching an episode of the old doctor who series that had wasp people (a queen IIRC) in it. Was this episode meant to reference that?

[Jon]

I'm looking forward to Dr Who going away after this series for a break. Hopefully with a new doctor and writing team on its return.

[Crazedwraith]

The Doctor's reaction to Donna murdering the giant wasp man, seemed at little subdued compared to his usual reaction to such things.

[Bounty]

I'm looking forward to Dr Who going away after this series for a break. Hopefully with a new doctor and writing team on its return.

Tennant isn't the problem here, and neither is Tate. The writing has just gotten very lazy and uninspired compared to the first two series of the revival. Instead of fresh ideas take to their logical conclusion (Blink, GitF, the WWII two-parter) we've got half-formed concepts held together by endless exposition and poorly-done "irony". It started in Tooth & Claw and has only gotten worse since.

I have high hopes for the Moffat stories since he seems to be a writer who really gets what sort of tone the Whoverse needs, but after that, a break would indeed be a good idea.

[Lost Soal]

Umm, Bounty. Your two episodes behind.

As for this episode, Bland, is about the best I can come up with.

[Bounty]

Umm, Bounty. Your two episodes behind.

If a mod could kindly fix the thread title?

[Lord Woodlouse]

As much I feel I'm going against the grain on SDN in finding DW episodes inoffensively entertaining, I do agree that the break could be a great opportunity to rejuvenate things.

Next year I hope at least one of the bank holiday specials goes to Moffat. Even better would be Moffat being executive producer of the series in 2010.

[Big Orange]

Tennant isn't the problem here, and neither is Tate. The writing has just gotten very lazy and uninspired compared to the first two series of the revival. Instead of fresh ideas take to their logical conclusion (Blink, GitF, the WWII two-parter) we've got half-formed concepts held together by endless exposition and poorly-done "irony". It started in Tooth & Claw and has only gotten worse since.

I have high hopes for the Moffat stories since he seems to be a writer who really gets what sort of tone the Whoverse needs, but after that, a break would indeed be a good idea.

Season Three was pretty aimless and shockingly uninspired in places, yet I find Season Four to be overall a notable improvement, with the entertaining if formulaic Sontaran story to be nowhere near as terrible as "The Dalek Wore Spats" although Moffat's eagerly awaited two parter and Davies' dreaded last set of episodes is whats going to make or break this season (last year I really liked the seminal "Blink" and the outstanding "Utopia").

I found "Tooth & Claw", "The Shakespeare Code" and "The Unicorn and the Wasp" to be episodes that have very good period production values, solid CGI effects, witty dialogue and strong guest actors, but they were too whimsical in tone and lumbered with lightweight, almost nonsensical stories that confounded them from being genuine classics (with "The Idiot's Lantern" going into the bin), while on the other hand "The Girl in the Fireplace", "The Fires of Pompeii", "The Empty Child", "The Doctor Dances", "Human Nature", "The Family of Blood" and even "The Unquiet Dead" are historical stories that are much more successful due to their tighter storylines and high concept ideas better sketched out then seen through by writers in a more diciplined, serious frame of mind.

Anyway I gave "The Unicorn and the Wasp" a '3' grade, but that was mainly due to the acting, slickly directed set pieces and immersive 1920s setting that entertained me inspite of the aimless and so-whattish storyline holding it together.

[Parallax]

On a related note I seem to remember watching an episode of the old doctor who series that had wasp people (a queen IIRC) in it. Was this episode meant to reference that?

That would 'The Web Planet', one of the adventures of the 1st Doctor. One with horrible costumes and annoying voices.

[mr friendly guy]

Relatively inoffensive episode. It struck me as being a homage or a send up of the murder mystery genre, so I gave it some leeway in the sense that it was most parts parody and some part serious.

The one thing I didn't like is how Who writers seem to talk too much about great figures in literature, eg Shakespeare in "The Shakespeare code", Dickens before and now Agatha Christie. At least I found Christie's stories more entertaining than those other writers.

I did like "The unicorn and the wasp" better than say "Black Orchid", the other murder mystery story from Peter Davison's era, which being 2 episodes long would be similar length to this story.

I also notice in this episode the writers are again making "in jokes", ie Tate refering to Dickens seeing Ghosts at Christmas while in "The poison sky" Tennant makes a remark in reference to "The empty child". You can't keep on doing these in jokes so frequently before they become lame, and it becomes a crutch in the sense writers use them instead of other witty dialogue.

[TC Pilot]

This episode was a serious improvement over "Doctor's Daughter," but it also wasn't the best, though it was silly enough that I'm not taking it particularly seriously.

Can't say I really cared at all about Agatha Christie, since I've never read any of her books, though it degenerated well into hagiography even before "Her books will be around for five billion years" (what about William Shakespeare's "My writing's so awesome I can defeat a race of aliens by spouting lines off the top of my head").

And why did they even bother making the son in a relationship with the one manservant if they're just going to kill him off halfway through?

[Vympel]

Ugh. Borinnggggggggggggggg.

[Zixinus]

I played Solitaire for most part of the episode. Because I was bored.

I know the writers like classic English writers, but if they had wanked Agatha Christie any harder, she would have needed a raincoat and an umbrella.

She was right: she's a writer, not a detective. Getting her help would be a good idea but pushing her to be in charge? It's one thing to write clever detective stories, its another to be in one.

The whole pseudo-wasp thing stank a bit (pun intended). First off, do the writers even considered the thought of an alien and human having a child while not stoned? Because I do hope they WERE stoned when they thought of it.

Then there is the idea that the boy GREW UP as human until one sudden moment while he had a completely different anatomy because he's, you know, a completely different species? The idea that he was able to get a suit and live a life of a human does make sense, but that he didn't know that he was really a person with insecticide wings?

[NecronLord]

Utterly normal. And they missed a trick by not having Christie come with the Doctor for an episode. Seriously. Writer. Who's historically going to go missing for days. Next episode set in the Space-British library (or something similar) ... see the obvious link there?

[Big Orange]

Ugh. Borinnggggggggggggggg.

I found "The Unicorn & the Wasp" to be almost complete fluff, but it was not quite as snore inducing as "The Idiot's Lantern" or "Fear Her" and it had some drive, but it was a step down from "The Doctor's Daughter" (not exactly a classic but it had some aspects I really liked) and the surprisingly decent Sontaran two parter.

What I disliked the most was the utterly redundant Unicorn thief subplot that added essentially naff all to the overall proceedings despite the jumped up prominance in the titles (but at least the Unicorn was easy on the eyes).

I found this episode easier to swallow, since I grew up watching Jeeves and Wooster, Miss Marple and Poirot since I was a big toddler.

[Zixinus]

Oh, and the magnifying glass save was motherfucking retarded. Just motherfucking retarded.

[Zixinus]

Along with the part where Agatha declares there is no such thing as a giant wasp when there is a holy fucking big wasp sting right in the door.

[Bedlam]

Mostly I found this weeks episode to be quite silly, not actually bad, lots of jokes and quite funny at times but not inspired.

I want vary happy about the morality of the wasps death. As far as we know the vicar was a perfectly nice man for most fo his life, got angry once got his mind messed up by a pendant thing, killed 3 people and was then killed.

I'd have been more happy if hed gotten his head sorted out by the pendant getting destroyed and him surviving and having to decide to live with his mother or fathers species.

[Minischoles]

Poor episode, only deserved a 3 because of the Doctor saving himself, but even as he's dying taking the time out to call Donna stupid for her guesses.

Other than that it was very poorly executed, the acting of Donna was poor (although apparently this was actually the first episode she acted as Donna, so thats why its not quite as up to scratch as her previous appearances where she was becoming a damn good assistant), and yes writers, Agatha Christie was a good author, no need to spend half the freaking episode jerking off about it with dialogue.

Here's hoping this is the downpoint of the series and we get some better ones going already.

[petesampras]

The idea behind the episode wasn't so bad - murder mystery with famous crime author and sci-fi mixed in. Trouble is, it was doomed from the start by the inclusion of that stupid giant wasp; which I got the impression was just there to show off the CGI anyway.